Program Objective

The Computer Science curriculum focuses on the practical use of contemporary computer science and technology. Students may focus their studies in fundamentals and systems, software engineering and programming, computer networks and architectures, or information and intelligent systems.

Students entering the Computer Science degree program are expected to have a Bachelor of Science or Arts degree with relevant background coursework in mathematics, computer science and/or engineering and meet the General and Specific Computer Science admission requirements.

Applicants are assumed to have knowledge of computer concepts and programming in a high-level language (e.g., Java, C, C++, C#, Fortran, Lisp, Prolog, Ruby, Perl). To receive the Master of Science Degree in Computer Science, students must earn a minimum of 30 credit hours in Computer Science or Engineering courses and satisfy the following requirements:

Each student completes a Plan of Study in consultation with his or her advisor. See Computer Science Plan of Study Worksheet for the Master of Science in Computer Science. This Plan will include required immigration courses (if any), five core courses, and three-four elective courses. At least two of the elective courses should pertain to a specific area which reflects the student's professional or academic interest.

Immigration Courses

Depending on academic background and professional experience, some students may be required to begin their studies with one or more prerequisite "immigration" course(s) beyond the standard 30 credit hours. The immigration courses are:

• CISH-4000 Computer Programming
• CISH-4010 Discrete Mathematics and Computer Theory
• CISH-4020 Object Structures
• CISH-4030 Structured Computer Architecture

Students with two or more immigration courses as prerequisites may be admitted conditionally. Since these are the equivalent of undergraduate courses, students are expected to achieve a grade of "B"or better in each course. Achievement below this level is cause for reexamination of admission. In addition, these immigration courses will not enter into the calculation of a student's GPA for graduation.

Core Courses (15 credits)

Each Plan of Study will contain the following five courses:

CSCI-4210 Operating Systems
CSCI-4380 Database Systems
CSCI-6050 Computability and Complexity or CSCI-6210 Design and Analysis of Algorithms
ECSE-4670 Computer Communication Networks
ECSE-6770 Software Engineering

Computer Science and Other Electives (9-12 credits)
With the exception of the immigration courses, all courses with the designation CISH or CSCI and most designated ECSE may be used as electives for the degree.

Advanced Courses

At least 18 credit hours must be at the "advanced" level. All courses with suffix numbers 6000-6990 fall into this category. These courses may include special topics courses which are offered under CISH or CSCI-6960 Topics in Computer and Information Sciences, or ECSE-6960 Topics in Electrical Engineering.

The specialization areas in the M.S. in Computer Science available to students attending Rensselaer at Hartford are listed below:

• Fundamentals and Systems
• Computer Networks and Architectures
• Software Engineering and Programming
• Information and Intelligent Systems

Fundamentals and Systems
Requirements: CS Core courses CISH-4210 and CSCI-6050 or CSCI-6210 plus at least three of the following plus a Master Project or Thesis:

• CSCI-6050 Computability and Complexity
• CSCI-6210 Design and Analysis of Algorithms
• CISH-6780 Research Methods
• CISH-6480 Compilers

Computer Networks and Architectures
Requirements: CS Core course ECSE-4670 Computer Communications Networks plus at least three of the following plus a Master Project or Thesis:

• CISH-6490 Cryptography and Network Security
• CISH-6250 Network Design and Cloud Computing
• ECSE-6590 Principles of Wireless Communication
• ECSE-6660 Broadband and Multimedia Networking

Software Engineering and Programming
Requirements: CS Core course ECSE-6770 Software Engineering plus at least three of the following plus a Master Project or Thesis:

• CISH-6510 Web Application Design and Development
• CISH-6520 Developing Enterprise Applications
• CISH-6530 Contemporary Informatics
• CSCI-6360 Parallel Computing

Information and Intelligent Systems
Requirements: CS Core course CISH-4380 Database Systems plus at least three of the following plus a Master Project or Thesis:

• CISH-6180 Data Mining, Search Engines & Distributed Databases
• CISH-6250 Information Security
• CISH-6150 Artificial Intelligence
• CISH-6160 Intelligent Systems (Evolutionary Computation or Neural Networks or Machine Learning)
• CISH-6170 Mobile Robotics

After completing course work in a particular area, students may elect to complete a three-credit Master's Project (CISH or CSCI-6980) or a six-credit Master's Thesis (CISH or CSCI-6990) in that area.

Program Completion

Students will complete their program of study via one of two paths:

Master's Project Path	Master's Thesis Path
CISH-6770 Research Methods	CSCI-6210 Design & Analysis of Algorithms or CSCI-6050 Computability & Complexity or CISH-6480 Compilers
CISH-6980 Computer Science Master's Project	CISH-6990 Computer Science Master's Thesis

Program Enrichment

Additionally, subject to sufficient student demand the following courses can be offered at RPI Hartford: Numerical Methods; Operations Research; Hypercomputation; Functional & Logic Programming; Metaprogramming & Automatic Problem Solving; Computer Graphics & Human Computer Interaction; Massively Parallel Architectures; VLSI Design & Nanotechnology; Brain Information Processing; Natural Computing; Agent-Based Adaptive Autonomous Systems; Bioinformatics; Natural Language Processing; Expert Systems; Support Vector Machines & Kernel Machines; Dealing with Incompleteness & Uncertainty; Fault-Tolerant Computing; Real-Time Systems; Computability & Complexity of Economics; Big Data; Data Communications; Distributed Systems; Software Metrics; Software Testing; Parallel & Distributed Software Systems; Multimedia Databases.

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